Being judged for not visiting Dad in care home.

[YouKnowNothingAboutUs]

If you have a relative in a home, do you judge the relatives of other residents if you don’t see them often? Well please don’t!

Just ranting really.

Visiting DF today in his dementia home. A relative of another resident (she was visiting her husband) commented ‘I’ve not seen you before. I’ve never seen anyone visit Richard’.

I actually saw her a fortnight ago and I said hello then.
My usual day to visit is a Friday after work, rather than a weekend, so if she doesn’t visit at 3pm on Friday she won’t see me often.

However, I actually don’t visit often for numerous reasons.

Firstly he didn’t give us so much as a backwards glance after my DP got divorced.
We had little contact from around age 10 and when I was around 18 years old he moved abroad.
He has never known when our birthdays are or how old we were.
She asked if I was Jane. I’m not Jane. Jane is the first born and golden child. Everyone in the home knows about Jane.
He actually has 3 children but no one will have heard about myself or our other sibling.
When he moved abroad I did visit him age around 20.
I then visited him a further 4 times over the years taking DH, then DC to meet him. Expensive, long flights when we are not high earners. He never visited the U.K.
Jane never flew over to visit him, our other sibling went three times.
Finally around 12 years ago he returned to the U.K. for good. He lived quite close to Jane so visited her often. I think in the last 12 years he had visited my house twice.
He never phoned and the only time I saw him was when I drove the 100 mile round trip to see him, the only time I spoke to him was when I called him.
I have a number of chronic health conditions that mean I am in pain, I am exhausted, I struggle working part time, I’m a carer for my terminally ill DH and we have a child with SEN.
So, visiting someone who I happen to be related to, but who never gave me much thought, is never the top of my list.
My siblings don’t visit.
I go as a duty visit.
I go when the guilt I feel about another human being being in such an awful place gets too much.
He is my father who I desperately wanted the father daughter relationship with, that other people have had with theirs, but I will never have. I mourn for this often, and have done for decades, but I don’t need to be judged by someone who very obviously had a different relationship with their father.

Not sure if I feel better or worse for getting that off my chest tbh. All I keep hearing in my head is ‘I’ve never seen anyone visit Richard’.

I'm single, no kids. If I end up in a care home there won't be anyone to visit other than my brother if he's still around.

It's nobody's business but yours how often you go but I totally understand the guilt you're feeling. I live 250 miles away from my DF so would struggle to visit more than once a month if he went into a home ( and we have a good relationship).

I wouldn't bother with him, let alone the staff making stupid comments. He sounds like my father, who left when I was about your age and made more fuss about his stepchildren than he ever did about me. Stuff him. He did nothing for you, and I gather he now has dementia, so what's left even of the jerk he was?

From what you have told us your dad is lucky that you visit at all.

please don’t let some random person make you feel sad.

do what’s best for you. Take care.

That isn't a rule, you know. It's just your personal opinion. Other people include it as a factor in their decision making

You don’t have to go at all.

There is really no need to explain or justify your visiting habits to anyone.

I have visited my mother in a dementia care home for 6 years, quite often when I go there are no other visitors at all, and when there are I don't recognise them - i.e. they are not the same ones each time. I go weekdays and I assume there are more visitors at weekends, but it's none of my business.

It's possible the woman is rude and nosy, but it's also possible she has the beginnings of cognitive decline herself (which would explain why she didn't remember you, and is disinhibited enough to comment). It doesn't matter either way - don't give it another thought.

I work in a nursing home and we are very careful to never make any comments along the lines of this woman's. She is totally out of order to say what she said. You do not have to justify yourself to anyone and I hope you can take comfort with what you've read on here today.

That's your opinion. Apply it to yourself and respect others right to have a different opinion.

Of course it not a rule, hence the word ‘should’.

I hope I won't ever be in a home but have told my daughters that if I have severe dementia and don't know them, not to visit me.

I do respect others opinions.
Why are you querying mine?

Anyone with a shread of empathy will understand that there might be a very good reason ehy you don't visit as often as them. She's a nobody, ignore it.

I think it'll be like that if my mother ends up in a home. She's 90 and has vascular dementia from a stroke, and I'm her carer. Should she mentally or physically decline to the point where the home services we have aren't enough, and she has to go into care, I very much doubt I'll be visiting her.

"your" "can" "should"

Try .... 'I" "personally " "with my own family and friends"

I visit my father once or twice a week… but staff and other people can make me feel guilty just the same. Don’t let it get to you! People judge anyway…

The staff asked me if I would like to volunteer helping in the kitchen once a week… but i have a job and kids! And i hate cooking! So I refused, they were not happy.
And there is this woman, she is a retired nurse and her mum is a resident and it seems like she runs the place, being there every day , sticking het nose in everything. I suspect she secretly records how often everyone visits. Which according to her standards will be not enough. She’s always making comments like “how lovely you found the time to visit us this week”.

‘He was a shit father and what goes around, comes around’.

That is a her problem, not a you problem.

Because it’s not ‘personally” or “with my own family and friends”. It’s my own general opinion.

The OP obviously has other reasons to not visit, which she has explained.

You could be honest and quite simply say he wasn't a very good father.

Let her chew on that.

@YouKnowNothingAboutUs
There really is no comparison between you visiting a parent and her visiting her husband.

I can tell by your posts she’s hit a nerve ~ and I recognise that because I myself live with that same guilt. You feel so bad about the lack of visitors just because you’re human and have compassion. How can you not?

As a previous poster said, most if not all of their contemporaries/siblings have passed away. In my parent’s case, two of their three children have also passed. Other than me, who else is going to visit?

All the judgy comments in the world can’t change that reality. We don’t all live in Hallmark families surrounded by massive families and communities.

We’re all just doing our best here. Be kind to yourself, do what you can and understand the only person who can judge and knows all the circumstances is you. And please know that those of us in similar circumstances get it.

Nobody is obligated to visit anyone in a care home. Neither is it any concern of any other random person. Just don't go, OP. Or, if you choose to visit, you unfortunately will have to find a way to avoid this judgemental person. I'm so sorry that you had to experience this.

My father is abusive and my mother not as bad but she won’t see us as he won’t let her - she could stand up to him (fully independent woman) but won’t as she likes ‘peace and quiet’ likewise she didn’t intervene when I got my face punched in on Christmas Eve for absolutely no reason and told me he was just as he works hard etc she has also been vile and abusive.

she is 80 and he is 84. They live a 5 minute walk away - I refuse to enter their home or to give them our address so they refuse to meet. It suits me.

if and when I get the phone call saying either of them is in a care home or hospital etc I shall not pick up the phone, answer the email etc I just won’t - all messages will go unread and unanswered.

any meeting is for their benefit and not mine.

I would not visit at all.

But if you do - ask her to repeat it and then say ‘I wish you peace but you have no idea of my history or my life and yet you make a judgement? Why do you feel you are in a position to do that?’

or simply don’t engage
you don’t owe anything to anyone

People should mind their own business. My mum was in a care home with advanced dementia. My brother was local and visited a couple of times times week. I was about an hours drive away, couldn't visit weekly but managed to visit when I could. Some covid restrictions were still in place. Tbh if nobody had visited at all she would have been non the wiser, her memory was shot to pieces and she had no idea who anyone was.
She was in the home for about 4 months until her physical health went down and she mercifully passed away in her sleep.
Don't feel guilty about not visiting, OP x